This fic was born thanks to xxxxxx_6x wonderful fanarts, which you can find there. This is just a little tribute 3 My story is nothing special, in fact. Just little moments about a Sherlock similar to Frankenstein's Creature, a sort of big and not-so-pretty and defective doll who meets a tiny John 3 Enjoy! And thanks a lot to my lovely betas mogwai_do (1-9) and chibi_saru11 (10)333
Kaleidoscope
1. Wrong
The sky is dark and hot behind his eyelids. It burns on his legs, it burns along a marked line running across his back, up to where his arm protects his body from the reddish, weak light filtering through holes that look like stars. His nostrils are assaulted by a strong smell, while in his ears vibrates, not too far from him, the grumble of an explosion, and then another one, and yet again.
He opens his eyes, finding himself blinded by the light.
There's paper flying, paper leaving a red and shiny wake and then it falls to the ground, dragged by a broken timber. Raising his eyes, he can see the sky filling with smoke, while everything around him is catching on fire.
He stands up, yanking his wrists and feeling his flesh burning. The cry he lets out of his throat is a howl that crashes into his closed mouth, little stitches of pain gnawing his lips.
He looks at the floor and sees his bare ankles coiled up in lead chains, burning, while the flames slowly approach, devouring the wood.
It's the end, and he hasn't even had the time to be born.
He roars, shaking his arms and legs in an attempt to escape before the fire devours him, making him a heap of bones and ashes. His heart is thudding in his belly, evident on his skin trembling at every beat; air leaves his nose in hard sighs, in a vain attempt to drive out the dust that slowly fills his lungs.
He's frightened and he doesn't even know why.
The room whirls on a mound of glowing coals and flames going up to the sky, and the noise of his chains fills the rest of the clean air around him, shaking it, mixing it up with the rubble. He doesn't mind the iron burning and cutting his skin, he doesn't mind if he can't take the chains from his ankles – he runs toward the first flash of freedom, runs toward the wood that slowly burns and becomes nothing, the dark night swallowing it up.
The fresh wind cuts his face, scouring his wounds. He's only covered a few meters when he trips and falls with his face pressing into the wet ground.
He stays there for everlasting minutes, breathing deeply of the smell of wet grass, tightening his fingers and toes, being enshrouded by unknown feelings. His body is wracked by shivers, and the shivers bring the pain in an unceasing reverberation. He whimpers, unable to utter a word – anything he tries to say, his mouth stays closed, sealed with a thousand pins.
He rolls around on the grass until he lies on his back, unable to do anything but groan. The Moon is a glittering scythe, judging him.
He was there because he shouldn't exist anymore. He remembers faces that he knows are family. He remembers words, words that he only understands now, after feeling the smell of his burnt flesh and dew caressing his back.
"You're a mistake."
2. Mist
His sight is a broken mirror and his world is half black. When he raises his hands to observe his wounds, part of them is swallowed by the darkness, which leaves just a rip, torn through a slight and annoying mist. His field of view is restricted and fragmented in places, shards reflecting his own image three times, like a kaleidoscope.
This is the norm, for him.
He closes his eyes a little, letting his black curls slip to tickle his nose. Owls' cres resounds in his ears and rise above the crackle of the wood, now far distant. Silence is a warm blanket wrapping around his shoulders, letting him sigh with relief for the first time since he opened his eyes. The cuts hurt; they throb and seep red liquid, but he doesn't seem to care. He raises his lips at the corners, a disturbing web made of threads weaving, piercing his flesh and making it swollen and reddish.
The wind doesn't hurt anymore.
He opens his eyes again, staring at the Moon. He doesn't know why he has a conception of what surrounds him, because he was born just a few hours ago; he simply knows, nothing else. His brain crackles while it elaborates concepts, storing up the necessary and deleting the superfluous.
The first thing he throws away is the memory of the faces he saw when he first opened his eyes. The second thing he throws away are the words from those he has just forgotten, words that hurt because he knows they're meant for that purpose, because he feels in every syllable the weight of their abandonment.
There's nothing else to delete for now. The pain that shakes his body is not a thought, it's not a memory. He grinds his teeth behind the stitching and thinks.
He's too tired to move along, he'll think about that later.
The creature raises his hands, bringing them to his belly. At first he feels his heart beating slowly, and then its beat increases when the heat starts to spread all over his body. It's a nice feeling that makes his toes tighten. Shivers shake him from his extremities to his head, filling it with little bubbles that burst into liberating mist that confuses him, forcing him to close his eyes and try to focus.
But his brain has deleted everything preceding his first breath as a free being.
He lets his arms slip to the floor, clutching at the fresh grass. He decides in that moment that he'll record everything as new, building his own mind, adapting himself to freedom.
A deep breath is a yawn he can't express, and as he closes his eyes, he hopes that the next day the mist filling his head will be gone – he doesn't like confusion, he desires order, because at the moment, thinking is the only thing he has left.
3. Loneliness
In the images he sees when sleeping (visions, dreams, he doesn't know what to call them, because it doesn't happen too often that he sees something after closing his eyes), there's never anyone by his side. At times there are shadows, on other occasions little beasts like mice or kitties – everyone is like him, all with their mouths stitched, with shadows in their eyes blocking out their view. At times he has to be content with his own company. There is never anyone similar to him, just immense empty spaces that, once he wakes up, stay there, hammering his belly.
He's not even sure he is a human being. His memories are vague and prick like needles in his mind, as a defence mechanism; he must not approach them, because he must not think of what happened before his freedom anymore.
So long as there's a mirror suspended in midair in front of him, the reflected image is a twin of the shadows accompanying him. He has no face, no body, no identity. He raises his hands, brushing his lips slightly, and a thick, straw-coloured thread appears on the mirror as if by magic, marking out a path of pain across his black face. It zigzags, disappearing behind the space that should be filled up with flesh, softening from yellow to dark red every time it pierces his skin.
A heavy breath and his hands rise to touch his nose, his hollow cheeks. In front of him, the thread weaving deepens, the colour brightens and rises, eating up another piece of nothing, showing a round nose at its tip, two tight nostrils on either side.
His heart vibrates against his belly's lining, begging him not to go ahead, not to break the illusion to show how he really is; but his brain screams and demands to know, because it wants to fill up with new information and blow over, to find a scrap of humanity, or something near it.
He can't live without knowing who he is, iwhat/i he is, if he'll be alone forever.
The mirror falls and breaks into a thousand pieces at his feet, the image of his half face still imprinted on the glass, multiplied by his ruined eyes. He feels a nice heat radiating from his cheek, and it's as if it run straight to his stomach to embrace his heart, giving it a moment of rest.
He opens his eyes, awakening. There's something pushing slightly, there where the heat warms him. He would like to see, but his right eye doesn't transmit any image – it's always been like that, since he was born. His head dangles towards that tender pressure, and if anything was there, now it's gone.
He breaths hard, resigned. Maybe it was just a shred of dream, maybe it was a bug.
Something clings on to his arm, as if it's climbing him, and his chest has a slight, happy bump. He feels little hands pushing to get up, climbing without tightening; he has no idea of what to do, so he decides to hold his breath.
It's pleasant, feeling something soft moving on his chest – it seems as big as a cat just born, and yet it's different, without hair, a lot hotter. He keeps his eyes half-closed, driven by curiosity.
Gold threads tickle his sight.
The contact puts his brain in motion, while his head crowds with questions shoving from side to side because of fear; after all, who can tell him that it's not someone wanting to take him back and put him in chains again?
He can't manage to stay still anymore; he puts his hands on the fresh ground, raising his back and quickly moving backwards, like a giant spider. He opens his eyes wide and breaths forcefully, his eyes roaming to find what was touching him. He hears a soft thump, bouncing on his ears like gum. Not far from him, grass moves disorderly, letting those gold threads peep out, and two little blue dots on a reddish face.
He'd gaze at him for hours. Maybe that thing is tall as his hand, he thinks, looking at it and comparing it with what he can see. He's small, sure is warm, and he's watching him with wet eyes. A hint of pain runs through his body, and he immediately finds himself crawling, moving towards that curious creature.
That one snuffles, rubbing his eyes with little fists. He would ask him if he's crying because of him, but he can't. He doesn't know how to move; he's afraid to scare him even more, if he moves his arms too much, if he jangles the remains of the chains hanging from on his wrists.
He swallows hard, looking for his gaze.
He finds it at once, and immediately he understands. That tiny creature is not crying for fear of his appearance, or his size, or the danger he could represent.
He cries because he's afraid to have hurt him.
He's never felt his heart beating so fast, and for the first time he feels a pleasant tingling wrapping him gently, caressing him and filling him up with new sensations, and they're all wonderful. He doesn't know how to move, if he can touch him, how to touch him. He would tell him not to cry anymore, because he's not scared because of his presence, quite the opposite. He whimpers something, trying to make him understand with despair, and that one raises his eyes and looks for his gaze, smiling slightly, with a wet nose and red eyes.
He doesn't feel alone anymore.
4. Need
Sherlock.
Their tongues can't articulate to express sounds, and he can't write, but his brain can do so many things, and reading is one of them. The other one has written it down on a piece of paper, with his tiny and trembling hand holding a feather dipped in black ink.
He's loved him since the beginning. He's rested it on his belly and has looked at him, and his smile has communicated to him more than those letters could. Now, he owns a name. A name gives you freedom, a name gives you the right to be a human being.
He feels happy. For the first time since he was born, he doesn't feel his heart beating in distress, for fear of being alone. He stays in front of him, tightening a finger as if it's sacred, smiling at him and loving him more than anything.
He puts the feather between his tiny fingers once again, pointing at him. He doesn't want to be the only one with a name.
He needs not to be the only one, because he needs not to be alone. He needs to feel a common thread, to know that he's not different from anyone else. The blond head nods and stains the paper again, and when he raises the sheet dirty with his name, his face brightens in happiness, and if he could, he'd smile widely.
John. It's as small as him.
Sherlock, John, Sherlock, John, handfuls of letters coming one after the other creating an order unknown until that moment. It's a vortex of pleasure that hits his body, warming him. He hopes he can transmit the same happiness to that tiny being, to John that watches at him with eyes as blue as the sky before being swallowed by the night.
He brings a hand to the ground, inviting him to step up with his glance. John is small and soft, sweet while on all fours climbs onto his hand, standing up when he raises his arm. He brings him in front of his face, studies his relaxed expression through the kaleidoscope of his sight, and all the while he wonders how is it possible that John, so sweet, so merciful, lives without anyone by his side.
He frowns, bowing his head a little and letting that thing that should be his mouth caress that little forehead. He's frightened that his stitching might annoy him, but John doesn't go away, and he raises his short arms, clinging to his cheeks.
Sherlock needs John as much as John needs Sherlock, and he understands this when their skins graze, and he knows they will never part.
5. Bites
Sherlock likes to touch John: he likes to let him go up on his hands, to let him walk with bare feet on his rough palm and to record his softness; he likes to rub his nose on his belly, trying to capture his smell, his soft breath caressing his skin; he likes to play with his hair, letting his finger slip between his golden threads to scratch gently at his head.
At times, he'd like to feel his warmth. On his hands, on his legs, on his chest while he walks, John is like a tiny ray of sunshine, a hot spot moving softly on his body and staying over his skin just for a few seconds. He would like it to stay a bit more, to imprint on his body and keep him company; when his sight is weary and he must close his eyes, feeling John sleeping on his collarbones is the only way he has to know he's there with him.
At times Sherlock'd like to hug him. He would like to be as tiny as John, just to hold him tight, to fill his hands with his face, and laugh, and feel the life streaming strong in his veins, and his heart beating against his chest, rather than on his stomach. At times, Sherlock would like to be as tiny as John, yet still be bigger, to enfold him with his body and protect him. John holds tight to a finger, and whispers in his mind that he will never leave him.
Sherlock just wants to feel John somewhere else other than his head, to stitch him on his heart. John feels it. John notices every feeling vibrating in the air, swallows Sherlock's pain clots to transform them in heat to convey to him. He feels the inability to give him what he needs in his chest, and he often stays in front of the window and thinks, finding a way to give him more, to communicate his closeness. His brain is small, and he's not as clever as Sherlock – Sherlock protects him from the cold by holding him in his hands, Sherlock harvests berries from the highest trees, Sherlock sets brilliant traps for the most cunning beasts, just to be back to him sooner.
It rains outside.
John feels the cold pricking through the glass. He turns to watch Sherlock, and then he jumps off the window ledge, running towards him, the giant sat on the floor watching him while smiling. He watches him approach, climbing with strength on his arm until, prompted by tenderness, Sherlock helps him transforming two fingers into hurt and caked steps. John reaches his neck, whispers and caresses his skin, before bending over and opening his lips slightly just enough to feel Sherlock's flesh slipping into his mouth.
He tightens his teeth around the flesh as much as he can, leaving little marks on Sherlock's shoulder.
He's afraid to hurt him – what a stupid thing to think, he who's big as Sherlock's fist.
But Sherlock whimpers a little through his stitched lips, first in surprise, and then in pleasure; and John keeps going, giving another bite, and one more, asking himself if the pain pulses through the flesh, if it makes hims feel more present.
John would like to stitch himself on Sherlock's heart.
6. Life
He has learnt to watch the world with new eyes, and the kaleidoscope in his eyes is not so annoying now, because there's John repeated three times on his sight, and three are his smiles, and three the lips open to free delicious whispers and crystalline laughs into the air.
There's a new order in his head; confusion and fear are exiled in to the deepest zones of his mind, while in the forefront there's only everything John can give him, everything John has made him see, everything John knows and he still has to discover, little by little.
John goes up on his head to gather fruit from the trees, he disappears for a few hours and comes back with his shoulders loaded with fabric pieces that he joins together with needle and threads every night, hands that move and create, as if that tiny creature was a little God, and everything he touches is his son.
He's alive, and he couldn't be more happy.
John has taught him not to be afraid of the fire anymore, and to revel in its warmth, when the sky becomes as black as his hair and the chill soaks into their bones. It's not the same fire that was going to eat him, it's small and tender, bursts out sparkles that remind him of the sunset, fading away to yellow while it goes off to warm his heart. He likes it, it makes him feel good.
In his dreams, he hasn't a black face stained with gold at his mouth. He can recognise himself now, he sees himself triplicate in his own grey eyes, he dreams about feeling sensations, he dreams about touching the sky and feeling the clouds' softness. There's a thread accompanying him into the dream world, a guide always staying in his mind, I'm here, I'm here, beside you.
At times he wonders what John's dreams are, if he's in his head in the form of voice as well. Who knows what voice he has.
He's got a desire floundering in his head, then it runs to his heart. And when before sleeping, Sherlock crouches under the blanket sewed by John, he closes his eyes and with a deep breath thinks he would be a dream of that tiny being.
He notices a few times that John comes near to his arm, and cuddles up beside him, leans his head on it and looks at him, smiling.
His eyes speak.
Can I share my dreams with you?
7. Love
John cries on Sherlock's shoulder, sniffing strongly. He feels worms growing inside him, little and venomous, and gnawing his stomach with their sadness. He wants to be more and he can't, and the pain crumples him like a piece of paper against the hand of the other one, that caresses his back with a finger, whimpering a song distorted by his stitches.
Normal people, humans that hate and despise them, humans call it love. Love that destroys, love that tightens the heart until it explodes in the throat, making you burst out sobbing.
Sherlock would have never thought he would hold love on his hands, because he's so far from men that in his head, things like that were practically impossible. On the contrary, for the first time he finds himself admitting a mistake, and he bends his back while his palms closes on his belly, praying that he can wrap John in all the warmth he's capable of. He wishes he could talk, he would give his thoughts a shape with words, but he finds himself pouring out his mind on the most banal acts, in a finger moving slowly on his shoulders, trying to create the warmth of solace. At times he feels so useless.
John's sobbing quivers on his chest, turning on painful pins. John's love is his love, his groan of pain the only thread binding them, an invisible ribbon piercing and tying their hearts together.
Sherlock bows his face upon John's head, letting his hair tickle him, and the smell of grass fills his nostrils. He puts a finger near that little curved body, and John holds it in no time, raising his wet face towards Sherlock's.
He sees him smiling.
That finger is his cane, something he can clutch at when he doesn't know where to look, when he feels confused and his heart hurts too much to let him think. He clings to it strongly and he puts on his feet on Sherlock's hand, and his face brightens in a wonderful smile, while his hands lengthen on his cheeks and, putting him on his tiptoes, he goes as close he can to brush Sherlock's ruined lips with his, soft and pink.
He can't afford to be sad. Neither of them can. Love needs to be devoured and revised, enriched, worn out. There's no time to tear apart, there's only time to let themselves be lulled by feelings, it doesn't matter how difficult it is.
John pushes his lips against Sherlock's, and erases every sign of pain to make room for the only words his mind can create in that moment.
I'll always be with you.
8. Scars
You're a mistake. Three words in a row, three clear cuts into his heart. They carve his flesh mercilessly, leaving it there, bleeding. The world is a heap of rotten material, man is a creature living in the filth of his mind, unable to give unselfish love, unable to live without giving others pain.
He hates his mind, because even if he tries hard to push bad memories away, sometimes they come back vivid behind his eyelids, throbbing with the same pain he was filled with when he was bound in chains, wrapped in flames. He pulls his knees to his chest, shut in a corner of his little house, wrapped in the blanket that makes the chill pass through the stitching.
There's never a fire on when John is out: he can feel his fear, when the sparks change to flames and devour the wood; he reads it in his eyes and he feels it in his itchy nape, while Sherlock stares at him and he wonders if sooner or later he'll disappear as well.
He wishes John was there. He cocks an ear and waits for the scratch on the door to fill the room, so that he can run and welcome him in his arms and not let him go away anymore.
There are shards on the floor. Shards of a broken jar, shards of a glass broken who knows how much ago, put in a corner so as not to hurt anyone.
At times, he uses those shards. He takes them and lets them slip through his fingers, before plunging them into his arms, his legs, carving his skin. Scars over scars. He feels a strange sensation, feels his blood flowing on his body; it's the relief of a bad thought being absorbed by the stings, pain pulsing and blurring his mind.
He takes care to do that when his head is way too full of thoughts, when John leaves their home and the room fills with emptiness. He doesn't take too much time to replace it with choked moans, because his thoughts press and press and press, and he can't do anything but let himself go that way.
But sometimes, time is not on his side. As today, for instance.
While a moan filters through his mouth's stitches, the hinges creak heavy and tower above him. John stays in the doorway for a few seconds, his eyes jumping from side to side of Sherlock's arm, following the slight trail of blood stuck to his long fingers. Sherlock doesn't even notice John's little hands tightening on his wound to close it – he only sees dewdrops slipping out of his eyes, and his heart becomes small and tight.
That he's a mistake, he's known it for a long time.
9. Guilt.
If he thinks about John, the first word that comes up to his mind is warmth. Even fire and the Sun are put on the back burner – what they convey to him isn't vaguely worthy to be compare to what John gives him every day.
The second thought that immediately arises, anyway, is the terrible difference between them, a river in flood of that in front of his eyes seems like a theoretical incompatibility, a constant drive back of conflicting factors. John is tiny and soft, he's big and gnarled. John is smooth and white, while his skin only has scars and crusts that the other removes slowly, every day.
And still, it's never been a problem.
John belongs to a world that isn't his, and often Sherlock finds himself wondering if it's not bad, staying with him, letting him sleep on his legs and play with his fingers. Maybe it'd be better to stay somewhere else, for John, where other smiles can follow his, where his hands can heal others' wounds, someone who owns what he calls life.
He rubs a finger on his nape, letting him moan in pleasure.
He could never let him go.
He caresses his chest, scratching over the fluff fabric of his shirt – it's got a cute pattern, black and white stripes that follow one another up to cover his white thighs. He feels him contorting while giggling, legs stretching and bending to relieve that sweet tension.
He could give up everything but John.
Sherlock looks at him standing up and tightening his wrist, and his soft lips press on his veins. The world is stopping, he can feel it slowing down while his heart leaves his stomach for a moment and centers on that little point.
John draws up a finger on his heart, feeling its fast beating.
I love you, he writes on his forearm.
That love could be someone else's, but it's his. He chews guilt like candy and swallows it, and every terrible feeling is absorbed by John as if he's made of sponge, turning everything into the most beautiful smile he's ever seen in his whole life.
10. Breaking
Little things seem to be born to break. Their fragility tremble in every inch, letting the risk to split in two forever vibrating in the air.
Sherlock has never considered John something small. Even if he can close his hands around him, even if just a fingers is enough to make him writhe, John has always gone beyond his idea of fragility.
He has always thought of John as a superior creature, a being to drink energy from, someone incapable of understanding what death is.
The sun is slowly slipping through leafy trees, reflecting itself on broken glasses and creating a play of light against the ceiling. The air is hot and touch slightly the floor, to go up later and occupy every free corner, making itself unbreathable. Sherlock's knuckles drum on the surface, while his brain slowly restart to work.
It often happens that he falls asleep while John isn't there – he cheats the time meeting him on his dreams. Luckily enough, the relief he feels when John's teeth rub on his skin to wake him up is much better than every illusion behind his eyelids.
But today, something is different.
John is rolled up on his lap, when Sherlock's eyes open mirroring the reality on his broken retina.
Sherlock bows his head aside and observes him, holding his breath.
Something on his stomach just did a loud crack.
He reaches out a finger to caress his back, and his hand starts to shake, together with his eyes, together the rest of his body.
His big hands wrap the creature and act as his house, while pain filter from his mouth, agglomerate of words he can't express.
John smiles, and for the first time, Sherlock knows what really means to be alone.
There's fire that eats the wood, devouring every memory.
On the floor, the blanket that John has sewed with love slowly becomes a ball of nothing, threads melting until they become impalpable. The fresh fruit near the fireplace is now an unrecognizable mush. Dead. Contorted.
Chains on his wrists tinkle, while his stitched lips brush softly that tiny creature's cold head. He feels his eyes becoming wet, but he really can cry.
He doesn't want to wet John; he doesn't want to pour his sadness on him.
He raises his face, smiling slightly. The fire approaches and surrounds him slowly, waving together with the fresh wind, outside their home. It's like if it's asking him for permission to devour his brief existence, to turn it into a heap of ashes, giving its memory to the Nature.
Sherlock smiles again, letting his head occupy the empty space between his chest and knees. His heart beats fast in his stomach; John's pale face reflects on his eyes three times, and the only though on his mind is I'm coming right now.
Heat is eating his cells, leaving pain behind it.
On the leavy trees, nocturnal birds are singing death.